Thursday, May 21, 2015

War on Clutter Project

Everyone hoards.
I do not know a single person who at any given time does not have at least one item in their house that they do not need, do not use, and also it has no emotional significance.
Most hoarders, and by that i mean, many of us, keep things in the hope of "i will need it one day". Needless, to say for most of us that one day is as distant as the sun!

The next justification for my hoarding is that "the thing" may not have any useful purpose, but it has emotional significance for me. Over time, i forget i own the thing - so much for emotional attachment, and then over some more time, i forget why i am emotionally invested in the thing. By then the thing has just become a part of some drawer/ cupboard or shelf. And it will stay there for eternity.

De-cluttering - the word sounds so fancy, and so efficient.
Every time i hear that word an image of a big crane with disposal boxes attached to it comes to my mind. It picks up all the useless stuff and segregates it automatically into recyclable, to be given away, and garbage. Imagine a little crane like that moving through your house. I think i may be able to fit in an entire zoo in my house after the crane finishes its job!
The problem is not just me - but all the people i live with too. We are a family of hoarders. Dealing with one's mess is tiring, imagine de-cluttering everyone's precious prized trinkets.

There have been times i have gone on a rampage of de-cluttering, and thrown things out. An all out, fight till the end, where the beginning is good - calm, logical. But by the time you reach the end - either everything is rubbish or nothing is rubbish. And after all that effort and trauma you are nowhere near your goal - either you are miles away from it or you have crossed it and run over it and so far beyond it that in Joey's words - "you are so far past the line, that you can't see the line. The line is a dot to you!"

So after years of losing this battle to clutter, i am back to take it head on. This time it is going to be a war. A long well thought out, strategic war. Frustration, impatience and instability have been replaced by the war generals of - calm logic, patience and cold decisions.
This is a start to my - War on Clutter Project.

I am not assigning a fixed number of days to this - because like i said the strategy is not like German blitzkrieg during world war two, but more of a patient attack room by room, drawer by drawer, drawing the enemy out, using the weapon of cold logic on it, and boxing it in its grave.
Let us see who survives.

The project is simple enough - given my limited cavalry in terms of time and energy that i can devote to this mammoth of a task, i am taking on small, tiny drawers, which at the end of a not-so-distant number of days, will add up to a big shelf, which again will add up to a cupboard, which in turn will add up to a room and then the house will be mine! Tiny 10 minute efforts every single day - sincerely implemented and coldly executed.

Non violence and "clutter go back" have not worked, surprise - all out bursts of attack have not worked. Maybe sustained firing is the solution.